RoS: Edinburgh House Prices Soar Highest Ever

Edinburgh homes have reached their highest ever average property price at £228,697, according to statistics released today by the Registers of Scotland (RoS). The figure for July to September 2010 (RoS's second quarter), represent a 9.9% price increase on the same period last year. This is well ahead of the current rate of inflation, currently 3.1% (CPI).

RoS, a government agency, is generally considered the most reliable provider of data on the local property market as it covers all residential sales, including sales for cash not involving a mortgage. Cash transactions are approximately a quarter of all sales.

Home-buyer expectations that interest rates are set to remain low for a long time (the Bank of England interest rate has been unchanged at 0.5% since March 2009 ) continues to fuel house price growth across Scotland.

In the last quarter, the average property price in Scotland rose to £163,360, the highest ever recorded and an increase of 5.8% on the same period in 2009.

Kenny Crawford, RoS’ Head of Commercial Services, commenting on the national figures said: "The number of properties sold over the last quarter is up on the same quarter last year by 4.9%, a difference of nearly 1,000 sales but this is still barely half of the number of properties that were changing hands in the busiest days for the property market in 2007."

Twenty-eight of Scotland's 32 Local Authority areas saw an increase in average prices with eight of them having returned their highest ever average price.

However, East Ayrshire, Eilean Siar, Moray and Perth and Kinross Local Authorities experienced a decrease in average property prices.

By comparison with Edinburgh's rise, the average house price in Glasgow was a more subdued 2.9% increase to £143,255. Importantly, RoS pointed out that the statistics were not skewed by sales of more expensive homes as some commentators have previously suggested.

“The average price increase does not appear to be as a result of a significant increase at the higher end of the price ranges covered by the RoS report,” it said.

“When the number of sales are split into price bands, the pattern since 2007 remains largely unchanged, although overall sales volumes are significantly reduced.”

Crawford said: "Interestingly, it is the detached and semi-detached properties that have recorded the highest increase in value while the volume of sales has been strongest for semi-detached and flats".